


The Arc of Conflict, Fragment e18,2: away from the wolfpack, but into the den of a bear

by bzarcher, solarbird



Series: Of Gods and Monsters [110]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Biological Warfare, Civil War, Concept Art Mercy as Michael Ngcobo, F/F, Gen, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Multiple Pairings, Oasis (Overwatch), Original Character(s), Police Brutality, Post-Talon, Russia, Secret Relationship, Trans Sombra | Olivia Colomar, open secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24974320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarbird/pseuds/solarbird
Summary: Katya Volskaya's government in Russia has destroyed the omnium Koschei, and held their own against the Gods of Oasis. But with Jesse McCree having upset a precarious balance, Lena, Hana, and Sombra have intervened in Russia's rising civil war. Now, what little stability Overwatch had managed to maintain seems on the verge of disintegration......as around the globe, the different factions prepare for what they are now certain must come.Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Conflictis a continuance ofThe Arc of Ascension,The Arc of Creation, andThe Armourer and the Living Weapon. To follow the story as it appears,please subscribe to the series.
Relationships: Kamaria Tendaji (OC)/Katya Volskaya, Michael Ngcobo (OC)/Carlos Eduardo Sato Teixeir (OC), Sombra | Olivia Colomar/Satya "Symmetra" Vaswani
Series: Of Gods and Monsters [110]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	The Arc of Conflict, Fragment e18,2: away from the wolfpack, but into the den of a bear

**Author's Note:**

> STILL WEEKLY! *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧\\(◕▽◕)/*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> BUFFER WATCH: July 25.
> 
> dirtyclaws has launched [a public fan-run _Of Gods and Monsters_ discord server](https://discord.gg/pDZMpVT) and invites everyone to come join it. ^_^

A purple skull appeared in the honeypot notepad on Satya Vaswani's computer's desktop, and she smiled.

"Hello, dearest," she typed, pre-empting whatever Sombra had intended to say. "I have a meeting in three minutes and forty-four seconds, so I will have to keep our time together short."

"Oh shit, princessa, sorry," the skull typed. "I'll make it quick. Mei-Ling wants to know if she can talk to you about an idea she has. It's pretty important but she needs some engineering help to make it work."

"Vishkar as a corporation always stands ready to help Dr. Zhou with her environmental work," she typed, puzzled. "Is someone withholding resources? I will have it corrected at once."

"No, no, it's not that - but it's also not quite environmental either. It's a different project, but I think we'll want to help. It's for the Russia problem."

_Ah_ , Satya thought, considering. _But what could her work... well. There is nothing to do but ask, is there?_

"I will be happy to speak with her later either via text, here, or in person," she typed. "Would she be available in... three hours' time?"

"I think she'd prefer in person if you can make some room for her."

"Assuming she does not mind talking over dinner, absolutely. She is, after all, one of us."

"She thanks you profusely, babe. I'll bring her over, and I don't think she'll mind going home by herself, so maybe we can have a little together time afterwards?"

Satya smiled. "I will always make myself available for together time," she typed, "as long as you remember the correct times to ask."

"Love you."

"I love you too, and I look forward to seeing you tonight."

The window cleared itself, as Sombra dropped her side of the connection.

_Dr. Zhou does not take her duties lightly_ , Satya thought, _so this project must be critically important to pull her away from the Ecopoint under these circumstances._

She took a sip from her tea, and reoptimised her desktop environment for her meeting with the transport division heads.

_23 seconds_ , she thought. _I am early, but not early enough to speculate efficiently. It will have to wait, for now._

She sent her nascent speculation off to the back of her brain to process for that night, but it poked back forward, distracting her, as the division heads' virtual presence displays lit up.

_No_ , she told herself as she convened the meeting. _Later._

\-----

Kamaria opened the door as quietly as she could - and being well oiled, and well maintained in general, it opened rather quietly - slipping into the bedroom at an all too familiar 3am.

"Well," she heard Katya say, "look who finally dragged herself home."

Kamaria winced. "Caught like a rooster for pluming, isn't that what you Russians say?" She slipped off her shoes and sat down next to her dressing table.

Katya chuckled. "That's... not entirely wrong. You are always on me about getting enough rest, and now, here you are. The boot is on the other foot."

"Ugh," Kami groaned, slipping off her shoes, rubbing her feet. "I never imagined running counter-terrorism would be so much like running actual terrorism, just with a hundred times the paperwork. I liked it better on the other side."

"Legitimate power," Katya said, "has its downsides. Responsibility to the public. Paperwork."

"I hate it."

"I do too. I'd rather be just a CEO again." She fluffed her pillow, poking at its corners, moving the stuffing back towards the centre. "No one would ever believe this, but if we ever defeated the Omnium, I expected to retire from politics the very next day. Did you know?"

"I didn't." Karmaria stripped off her top, laying it out on her dressing table, to put away in the morning. "I never saw you giving up power so easily."

"I would've. I am good at politics, but I prefer engineering. Instead, I find we've run from the wolf only to find a bear."

"You Russians have a saying for everything, don't you."

"Yes. Except for 'finish coming to bed already, I'm sleepy.'"

Kamaria, now undressed, slid between the sheets, pleased that the bed was already warm. _There are some advantages to being the last one home_ , she thought. "We have the blockades established," she thought to add. "It took a lot of work, but we have defensible positions across..."

"I know," Katya said. "I checked in several times during my conference with the Chief of Staff, and again when I got the alert that you'd arrived at the dacha. Anything I don't know, you can tell me in the morning."

She rolled onto her back.

"I was expecting a massacre," she said, voice quiet. "One way or the other didn't matter - either a surprise victory, or propaganda to shift the tide. Now... we just have more traitors. We cannot win, can we? We just can't win."

"Don't forget you also have an embarrassed Federal police. But at least they're finally convinced they can't handle this themselves."

Katya shook her head, slowly, back and forth, and sighed. "Thank you for being there. I needed someone in those meetings I could trust." She hesitated, looking up at the intricately painted ceiling. "I just never dreamed that person would be you."

"Me either. Roll over, little spoon."

Katya Volskaya found the idea of being given orders hilarious, but liked the idea of being the little spoon right now. She giggled, tiredly, but turned over onto her side.

"I've missed this," she said, trying not to cry. No tears. There's no room for them. Not even here.

"I have too," her once and again lover whispered. "If we are both to be in the bear's den... at least we can have company."

"I wonder what they'll write about all this, in the future," Katya murmured. "If we somehow win. Or even if we don't. That we did our best to stop them? That we were wrong to fight at all? Will we just be... forgotten, a footnote, erased?"

"I don't know," Kamaria replied, sleep already creeping into her voice. "But who cares? A hundred years from now or a thousand... by then, all this will be over, and so will we."

"Will it be?" Katya asked. "Will _we_ be?" 

"It will," Kamaria promised. "All we have to do is win."

\-----

Cadu and Leyla sat at a private table in the Ministry's upper-levels cafeteria, the view of the city magnificent, the sun tinting everything just a little bit gold, even their eyes, even inside.

"They were willing to kill a lot of people," Dr. Masri said, "to get at one of ours." She took a sip from her coffee. "And that was just the most obvious statement. I don't think we can ignore that."

Cadu nodded his agreement while taking a bite of his steaming hot Acarajé, and closing his eyes for a moment. "Oh, the prawns today are amazing. You should try this. No, seriously, you should try this, take a bite."

She wiped the spoon from her coffee clean, and took a prawn from his plate, tasting it. "Ooo, that's hot. That's hot! Also hot! As in spicy!"

"Too much chili oil for you? I'm sorry, I didn't.."

"No, no, it's..." She let it cool in her mouth, feeling the flavours unfold. "It is a little hot. But it's delicious."

"Brazilian food is the best food every time," he smiled, taking a sip from his Iraqi pomegranate soda.

"I _like_ my kibbe hammoud," she said, gesturing to her own plate. "It's comforting. We have difficult decisions to make and I need comforting flavours right now."

Cadu hummed agreeably. He and Michael had been up half the night talking about Russia, and he'd come to several conclusions, not all of which Michael agreed with. _His job is to restrain_ , he thought, _but sometimes, he needs to be something else._

"You're right, though," he said. "That was a lot of people to kill just to reach one target. I mean, she's not one of _ours_ ours, she's one of _them_ , and that _still_ didn't matter."

_**They're** the ones who need a Michael Ngcobo right now_, he realised. _Too bad they don't have one._

"It doesn't take reading between the lines of Russian propaganda to figure out they are" - Leyla speared one of the small kibbe with her fork, before dipping it into tomato sauce, desperately clinging to the normality of luncheon - "not onboard with our programme."

She put the fork down with its cargo intact, having just realised something, having read something between the lines of what Cadu was not saying.

"Haven't you seen the toxicology reports on those samples Hana brought back? Do you not know?"

"No," he said. "I've been pretty swamped with lab work. Bad?"

She shuddered. "Horrible. They were going to salt the earth."

"That seems a little much, even for them."

"It's worse than you think."

"So when we go into council, you'll be on my side?"

"Yes, but you don't understand." Dr. Masri slumped a little in her chair, then fortified herself and straightened her spine. "I don't think we have any choice. What Russia is willing to do to stop us is... If we're just not going to let _all_ our work be undone, I'm afraid we have to support..."

She hesitated, fighting herself, still, to get the words out. She did not like war. Historically, she'd considered herself a borderline pacifist, though willing, if absolutely necessary, to fight in self-defence. The very idea of war repulsed her, knowing what had been done, over and over again, to her country.

But what she liked and did not like no longer really mattered; it had become a matter of necessity.

She picked her fork back up, took a bite, savoured it as best she could, and swallowed. Despite the fear in her stomach, the taste was good. The taste was familiar, traditional. Normal.

Comforting. Comforting enough to let her say what she needed to say.

"We have to support some kind of direct action." She said the words slowly, as though she hadn't gone over the possible phrasing a dozen times. "As long as it can be contained. I will _not_ back... _large_ actions. I will approve just enough to solve the problem. What is necessary. No more."

Cadu leaned back in his chair, considering the careful words.

"Even that's a big change for you. I thought I was going to have to talk you into... well, you've never..."

She lifted her gaze from her plate up to his eyes.

"They're looking for ways to end what we're doing for humanity, Cadu. They might like the cleaner air, and oceans, but... they do not like us. Not _any_ of us."

He blinked.

"Not even... people like you and me?"

She nodded, firmly, up and down, the faint gleam of gold visible in her eyes when the light was exactly right.

"As I said - not even _us_."

"Leyla," he said, leaning forward, "Michael didn't mention any of that last night."

"The results came out of processing this morning. From the samples. An hour ago. He should know by now. He'll definitely know by council. We all will."

"Leyla... What was in that toxicology report?"

"Nothing that worked. Not yet."

The words tumbled out, as if said to reassure herself, and she looked a little frightened.

"But it's enough to tell us that they're looking for something that would."

**Author's Note:**

> This is the thirty-ninth instalment of _Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Conflict_. To follow the story, [subscribe to the series via this link](https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024), rather than to the individual works.


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